(Argggh some how my nearly finished post got lost so I have to start over)

WildStar is a science fiction/fantasy MMORPG, devleoped by Carbine Studios, published by NCSOFT (publishers of Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 by Arena Net).

I'll be trying it out for free with weekend. I received an invitation to beta weekend. Its okay to talk about it, they posted about it on Facebook, where they said the non-disclosure agreement has been lifted. (Any way I never got one to sign). I haven't decided yet what character(s) I'll make.

Business model: purchase ($59.99, $79.99) plus subscription (purchase includes 30 days) Pre-order: NOW (includes beta weekends and 3 day head start)Launch: June 3rd

Plot: The Exiles and the Dominion fight over the planet Nexus, newly discovered home world of the lost race, the Eldan. The Exiles found the planet, but the Dominion claim ownership, like they claim every thing else in the Galaxy. The Exiles have been pushed off other worlds, they refuse to be pushed off this one. The battle is on.

Factions: The Dominion: powerful Galactic Empire, claims to be founded by the Eldan and thus rightful rulers of the Galaxy.The Exiles: lose alliance of races who lost their home worlds to the Dominion.

So sort of the opposite of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Unlike SW:TOR there are no faction specific clases, only races.

Races:Dominion: Cassian: humans of the planet Cassus, claim the Eldan picked them to rule the Galaxy. Superiority complex (all clases available)Mechari: race of intelligent killing machines designed by the Eldan themselves to be the Dominion's enforcers. No sense of humor.Draken: bastial race of warriorsChua: small, sociopathic scientists

Exiles:Human: decendents of Cassians who rebelled against the Dominion and fled Cassus 300 years ago (all clases available)Granok: stone-headed mercenaries who like kicking *** and drinking beer (not necessarily in that order)Aurin: tree-huggers with tails and rabbit earsMordesh: space zombies

Looks like all classes can DPS (Damage Per Second, its used to refer to characters who are primarily damage dealers). Three can also tank (take lots of damage while doing damage close up, allowing DPS to do more damage and healers to heal). Three can heal.

One of my guildies in SWTOR says the tank is always right (of course he's a tank). In another guild the healer told me the healer is always right. Us poor DPSs get no respect. I've played all three roles in SWTOR. Not good at healing, besides it bores me. Tanking can be fun, but a lot of work. DPS is usually the easiest role to play, so there are usually more DPS types than tanks or healers. Tanks (and healers to a lesser degree), need to be careful they don't get a swelled head. They sometimes become elitist thinking only tanks (or healers) matter. When in fact all three are needed. Its the DPS who do most of the killing, not the tank. Tank's job is to hold aggro to keep the healers and DPS from getting hurt, so healer can keep tank and DPS up, while the DPS does the bulk of the damage.

Had I known I was going to be invited to this beta weekend, I'd have asked for it off work.

I've played two characters. Exile: (male) Aurin, Spellslinger, Scientist and Dominion: Chua, Engineer, Soldier. With the aurin I managed in my limited time to complete the tutorial on the space ship and one zone of the planet Nexus. I just started the first Dominion zone of Nexus.

The gender of Chua is currently "unknown". You don't get a choice like you do on the other races. Oddly even the Mechari which are machines have male and female.

Walking characters look like their prancing, this was particularly disturbing when I briefly tried a Mechari. The Dominion's killing machines make me laugh every time it moves. Don't like it. All I noticed with the aurin and chua when they move is their swaying tales.I love making the chua double jump. Great to see this little guy go flying over objects and people.

Wildstar is more cartoonish than either Guild Wars (1 and 2) or Star Wars: The Old Republic. That's not bad, just different. As is apparently normal for these games, evenn SWTOR, there are people in chat who insist on comparing the game to World of Warcraft (WOW), which I've never played.

Dialogue has a little voice work from the NPCs when they great you but is otherwise mostly text and so far I have NOT heard my own characters talk, which is disappointing after GW and SWTOR. Cutscenes are few and far between but seem well done.

I didn't care for the music at first but its growing on me. Hard to beat the Cantina band and Imperial March from Star Wars. And GW2 has Jeremy Soule's always excellent music.

Every zone has path quests but there less obvious once you leave your factions ship for the planet Nexus. Since I had no idea where I'd find science tasks I ended up being an explorer (without the jumping puzzles) and covered the entire map looking for them. There were only 3. While the tutorial (ship) science tasks were perfectly save, the ones on Nexus always lead you into danger. Plants and animals on Nexus don't like being scanned. I found one puzzle where I had to hack a locked door. I didn't know what I was doing and random clicking got the door open. Inside was a datacube. Once the door is unlocked others, including non-scientists can open it. I don't know how long this lasts though. Soldier gets quests to go "assassinate" a particular target or does a "hold out" which is a timed fight with multiple groups attacking you. Anybody else passing by can jump in, and some did, to get experience for killing foes.

Combat: I'm not sure how to describe it, but when you're in combat the game shows you the area where you attacks effect. For Spellslinger its pretty much a straight line towards whats in front of you. If the ground around you turns red, MOVE, that's a warning your foe is about to lunch an attack. For the Engineer the range is shorter but wider. All characters have a skill that temporarily boosts your other skills. My Spellslinger got to level 6 with just enough money to buy damage skills, not enough to purchase healing skills, but as I said I'm not good at or fond of healing. Played enginner a lot less so no where near tanking yet.

Armor: I was confused at first, and posted a message in the WildStar forming asking why my Spellinger was getting Esper armor for rewards. Apparently a bug, should be labeled Esper, Spellslinger as Engineer armor from early quests is labeled Engineer, Warrior.Spellslings and Espers both wear light armor. Engineers and warriors, heavy armor. Medics and Stalkers get medium. Eventually you'll get quests that offer class specific armor, Spellslingers need Finesse, Espers Moxie.

I reported a bug where the scientists scanbot controls vanished as soon as you land on Nexus. Bots take damage durring combat so being able to dismiss them is necessary to keep from temporarily losing them.

A more annoying bug is the little windows that pop up advising you how to do things or giving lore get stuck open, so after awhile I have to log out to get them to go away.

EDIT: ARGGGGHHHHH. Apparently I didn't pay close enough attention: I found that one datacube, but there were actually 4. At least thats how many dominion has to find in starting zone. There are also journal entries spread around each zone which every, not just scientists, can find for lore.

Got to play a Exile: (male) Mordesh, Medic, Explorer. Finished one zone on Nexus, getting all 4 datacubes but missig some journal entries. At these low level the jumping puzzles were not hard. I expect they'll get harder so I wouldn't play explorer for real.

Played a little of Dominion: (male) Cassian, Esper, Settler. Settler a lot of running around looking for stuff to collect to build with. Only had time to do the ship. Will probably play more on planet after work tonight.

Little more background. Cassians are humans from Cassus. Humans are decedents of Cassian rebels.

A technologically advanced race the Eldan created machines with artificial intelligence, the Mechari. When the Eldan detected an intelligent life form on the planet Cassus, they sent the Mechari to escort the Cassian leader to Nexus. Later, the Eldan sent the Cassians a new leader, part Eldan, part human. He became the first Emperor of the Dominion.

When the Eldan vanished the Mechari became the Dominion's enforcers.

When the Dominion discovered the home world of the Granok and sent a Mechari "Ambassador" to demand their joinging the Dominion, the Granok pounded it into dust. This started a war. The Granok were primative but tough. Still, the Dominion had the better technology and ultimately would have won except a band of Granok carried out a series of raids on Domnion tech. WIth Dominion weapns they were able to drive off the Dominion. However, instead of being rewarded these Granok were banished for violating ancient Granok tradition by using their enemies weapons. These Granok became mercanrie. Holding a grudge against the Dominion when they met humans they joined the Exiles.

When the human rebels fleeing Cassus stumbled upon the Aurin homeworld, they befriened these primitive people. Reasling they were putting the Aurin in jeapordy the humans eventually left, hopeing the Dominion would not find the planet. But they did and although the Aurin were no threat the Dominion punished them for aiding their enemies. The Aurin queen sent a distress call and the Exiles responded by sneaking as many Aurin off world as they could. The Aurin have proven to be adaptive learning to use technology quickly.

When the Dominion encountered the Draken there could have been a long and bloody war but the Emperor challenged the Draken leader to single combat, and when he won, the Draken swore loyalty to the Dominion. Draken act as the Dominion's spys and assassins.

The Mordesh were powerful alchemists and were invited to join the Dominion. When an elixr that was supposed to grant eternal life turned out to be toxin which turned the Mordesh into ravenous, cannibals before it kills them, the Dominion quarantined the planet. The Mordesh found a treatment, not a cure. They have to take the drug daily. As long as they take it they are virtually immortal, they stopped aging, however its a living death as they're body parts are slowly wasting away. They replace dying tissue with machinery. Abandoned by the Dominion a few Mordesh turned to the Exiles to escape their planet.

The Dominion found the chau to be primitive but surprisingly intelligent. Exposed to Dominion technology, the chau soon took it apart, analyzed it and improved it. Now the chau are the Dominion's primary scientists. Unlike the Aurin who try to preserve nature, the chau turned their planet into a giant factory. Chau have no morals. It was chau tech that drove the Aurin from their home world.

Considering pre-ordering. Standard version, I don't think the deluxe bonus items worth the extra #20, that could buy me an extra month of play instead.

Character names cannot have spaces in them so Ramei Arashi (one of my GW1 characters) would be RameiArashi if I used that name.When creating a character the part you can adjust most is the face. For beta I did not spend any time with the facial characteristics sliders. For the beta I recycled my SWTOR character names, except one was actually taken.

Typical of these games characters bodies are not realistic. Someone was complaining that female characters have waists so small there's no room for internal organs and you can guess what the problem is with chests. Some of the males have overly large shoulders. I think the answer is to roll all chua Fat little rodents, the major differences is in face and ears not body so much. Aurin and chau my favorite races. Dont care for Mechari, the Dominion's great killing machines prance when they walk.

Don't know how it works but pre-ordering the game supposedly allows reserving character names. They're also giving gifts to people who took part in beta. How that works I don't know but on the last day I got a message about a gift of armor for doing beta and every day a person logs in during betas is also supposed to reserve 3 boxex which will contain some random goody. So I would get 9 if I buy the game. Apparently this extra stuff is linked to email used on NCSOFTs web page which is where you register game key codes.

WildStar forums have English, Deutsch (German) and Francais (French) versions, so my guess is the game will be in those languages.